The Color of Blood
by Eunoia2140
Summary: There were four times that Thor could have saved Loki from getting hurt, and one time he couldn't have.


**This is a birthday gift for Lady Charity. It took me two weeks to edit and write which was a LOT longer than I thought it would. Enjoy.**

i.

The first time that Thor convinced his brother to do something he wasn't supposed to, was also the first time that he saw Loki gravely injured. It was during the winter, when the wind blew freezing air over the ground to ice over the grass and whisper warning songs of dark and cold in the ears of the Einherjar. It was when the sun was kissing the horizon, splashing purple and pink across the slowly brightening sky, that Thor pushed open the door in the kitchen with hands that shook from excitement. With his other hand gripping his brother's smaller one, he crept out onto the grass that crunched under his feet, the frost covering his old boots in tiny white crystals.

"Thor," Loki said sleepily. "Thor, where are we going?"

Thor tugged on his brother's hand, pulling him along like a duck. "Hush, Loki. I told you before, it's a surprise." Loki mumbled something behind him about how his surprises were 'never very good because he could never keep them a surprise,' but Thor ignored his comment, too caught up in himself to notice.

He had rarely snuck out of the palace, especially not at this time of day, and never _ever_ with Loki accompanying him. But this time was different. Thor was eager to see the look of delight on Loki's face, to hear his gasp of surprise, and to see him jump up and down with excitement when he saw Thor's present for him. It was Loki's Name day, after all, and Thor had never picked out a gift for Loki by himself before, let alone presented it to his brother alone.

His surprise was a very special one that he'd found accidentally one day while wandering the forests during the first frost of winter. For weeks on end Thor had debated with himself about whether or not he should show Loki his gift alone, or when he should show him, or if it even counted as a gift at all. Then, when it had snowed a few days earlier, Thor decided that he would wake Loki at dawn on his Name Day and drag him down to the forest to see the very special, very cold, surprise. They would spend all day together – spend all day laughing and chasing each other just as brothers ought to do.

The thought of having so much fun during the day made Thor's heart beat faster, made his feet quicken their pace as his destination – the massive forest at the edge of the meadow – came closer and closer. The air was cold and crisp, numbing his skin when the breeze blew lazily through the air.

"How much farther?" Loki asked, yawning.

"Just a few meters into the forest. I promise we'll be there soon."

After a few more seconds of walking in silence:

"Thor, I'd really like to know where we are going," Loki piped up from behind him.

"You're quite the impatient brother, you know?"

Loki huffed, quickening his steps to match Thor's; now obviously very wide awake and very curious to see where they were going. He gazed at Thor warily as they strode across the empty meadow. "I'm the one who's getting into trouble most of the time," he pointed out. "I don't think sneaking about suits you well."

Thor laughed. "There's a first for everything."

That shut Loki up for a few minutes, allowing Thor to sink back into how the day was to pan out. Sometimes his brother never stopped talking, and sometimes it seemed that he never spoke up. It was always black and white with Loki. Which made a stone drop in Thor's stomach as a thought clicked into place: what if Loki hated his gift? What if his impatience grew into anger when he found out that Thor's surprise was not as grand as he was led to believe it was?

"Could we stop running?" Loki complained. Thor slowed almost to a halt, realizing only then how fast his pace had grown to be. Loki frowned. "I didn't mean stop."

"You know," said Loki when they continued on their way, "I really hope this surprise of yours is all that you are making it out to be because it _is_ my Name Day and I had plans for the day."

"You are only turning 87, Loki. What important plans can someone your age have?" Thor scoffed.

Loki sneered – Thor noticed that it was an expression that had grown to be common on the younger Prince's features. "Unlike you," said Loki, "I have a life other than practicing in the training ring and daydreaming about leading Asgard into glorious battles."

"Oh . . . ?"

"Yes–!" Loki scrambled over a rather large log to keep up with his older brother. "Mother promised to teach me a new spell today, and Sigyn wanted to take me to the market to see a new honey vendor that she said sells the best honey in the Nine Realms–"

"_Sigyn?_" Thor hopped over a tangle of ancient roots knotted into the ground. "I think she's taken a fancy to you." He glanced over his shoulder at Loki whose face had flushed.

"She has – _not_," Loki spluttered, ducking under a branch that almost hit him squarely in the face. He sighed before somewhat reluctantly continuing on: "And the Lady Sif asked me to accompany her to the stables later because apparently _she_ has a surprise for me as well, but you and she are very alike, especially in the way of surprises_–_"

"You are referring to our friend by the title of 'Lady' now? Sigyn has her heart set on you, but you have your's set on another –"

"Would you _stop_ interrupting me?" Loki snapped. Thor had to bite his lips in order to keep from snickering. Loki was never comfortable when discussing the topic of affection, nor was he at his perkiest of moods early in the morning. "Honestly, Thor, sometimes I think you're adopted, what with your lack of manners–"

"Shh." Thor pressed a finger to his lips to silence Loki, ears straining to hear the familiar muffled sound of rushing water. He ignored Loki's sour look and said, "It's just through here," before crawling under a large thicket.

A sigh of relief escaped him when he saw that they'd arrived at the correct destination. For a few minutes of their expedition he had thought they were lost. He silently thanked the Norns for his sense of direction, however poor it was.

Across from them was the other side of the forest; directly in front of them were patches of browning grass and dying reeds; but the real magnificence was what lay in the middle of that. A river made of pure ice cut through the ground, zigzagging and curling like a thread through a shirt sleeve, frost making the top of it shimmer in the early morning sunlight. Upon closer inspection, one would observe that the river was not made out of ice but was frozen over with a thick sheet of opaque crystal that practically called out for people – children especially; it seemed – to run around on it.

"Happy Name Day," Thor smiled.

Loki stared at him, then at the river, then back at Thor, utterly awestruck. "Thor, it's wonderful." A smile split his face in half, all teeth, with no sign of his earlier impatience. "Are you just going to stand there? Come on!"

He grabbed Thor's wrist and dragged him onto the frozen river. The ice made a few echoic sounds as it got used to the children's weight, but it held fast. Loki let go of Thor's wrist, taking a few experimental steps forward and to the side. Nothing happened. He crouched down to run his fingertips through the lightest coating of snow on the ice. He ran his palm over it, wiping away anything that would obscure his view of the river below.

"It's not frozen all of the way through," he observed.

Thor walked over to him and put his hands on his knees to see what Loki was talking about. True, there was water rushing under the ice like a stampede of wild beasts, sending small vibrations through the top of the river occasionally.

"It's not," Thor agreed, deciding to not mention the fact that the ice was thinner than he had remembered it to be. Not that it would matter, anyway.

A cold smack on his face knocked him backwards. His hand flew to his fully numbed cheek to feel the wet skin and tiny snowflakes sticking to it. Loki grinned triumphantly down at him, shaking his hand of excess snow. "You're it," he said with a smirk.

Thor jumped up and ran after Loki, both of them slipping and sliding on the ice, laughing and shouting when they fell only to struggle to get back onto their feet. The ice made noises occasionally, groaning or cracking quietly, but they paid the sounds no mind. They played on the frozen river until the sun was high in the sky and their lungs burned from gasping in frigid air.

Loki put his hands on his knees, panting. Thor was sitting on the ice, watching Loki's eyes narrow as he leaned forward, brows furrowing and lips pressing together to make an expression that only Loki was capable of.

"I think we should be getting back to the palace," he said.

Thor scratched his head and maneuvered himself so that he could kneel on the ice. "I suppose," he said indifferently. "But I was thinking that we could go on a walk down the river." His gaze wandered off of his brother and focused on the slope where the river fell, becoming a waterfall during warmer weather. When Loki was silent for too many long moments for Thor's liking, the older Prince said, "Loki? Is there something wrong?"

He could hear Loki's shaky exhale of breath, saw the puff of warm air mixed with cool air leave his lips. The ice crackled ominously under Loki's feet as he straightened, brushing off his tunic of any clinging snow as if his peculiar silence was nothing out of the ordinary. "Which river did you say this was?" he questioned Thor calmly.

"I . . . didn't."

"Thor, I think we ought to leave," said Loki, urgency tainting his voice. "_Now._" His mask of calm was still in place but his eyes betrayed him, the green irises filled with fear.

Seeing his brother terrified caused Thor's brotherly instincts to take full control. His voice did not shake like his body did when he spoke. "Okay, Loki, we can leave. Just come over here slowly. Very, very slowly. Yes, just like that, small steps . . ."

As Loki crossed over to where Thor was standing, tiny step by tiny step, his brother continued to reassure him that everything was going to be alright, everything was going to be okay if he could just take a few more _small, small_steps towards the bank of the river, and then they could go home.

The temperature rose suddenly, the air becoming humid fast enough to make Thor choke and turn the ice under Loki's feet to steam and melt, sending him plummeting down into the roaring river below.

"Thor–!" Loki's cry was cut off by the water as the current swept his legs out from under him, disabling Thor from seeing his brother.

"Loki!" Thor dove to the hole in the ice, plunging his hands into the rushing water to see if he could grab onto Loki's hand, tunic, _anything_. The temperature evened out again just as fast as it had risen, the ice around the hole steaming once again. The icy water combined with the suddenly chilly air again was enough to make Thor gasp and wrench his hands from the water. They shook violently and were ghostly white. He only had feeling down to his wrists, and had to breathe on his hands for a few seconds to get even a little blood flowing back through them. When he turned his attention back to the hole, he realized it was gone, the only thing left of it being a thin jagged circle engraved in the ice.

His breathing hitched, his heart literally stopping in his chest for a moment. Loki was gone. Swept away by the current, tumbling around under the ice somewhere downstream by now, probably already unconscious from lack of air. He was alone, cold, and having the life drained out of him. He would die that way – he would die afraid, his last memory being Thor watching him fall through the ice and not even trying to save him.

Determination ignited Thor's veins, hot blood flowing through his body, stopping its shaking and giving his hands feeling again. No, he would not let his brother die alone and afraid.

He would not let his brother die alone.

He decided that looking for Loki whilst walking on the semi-frozen river was a bad idea – the temperature would most likely rise again and he would be washed away with the current, and then who would come to save Loki? The best way to track down his brother was to do it from the bank where he could walk along the river with a sufficient view of under the ice.

The cold bit at his skin as he trudged hurriedly along the bank, climbing the hill he'd seem earlier and trying not to slip down the other side. As he searched for any sign of green or black or white under the ice, he realized how uninviting the river looked, and cursed himself for ever thinking that it would be a good idea to bring his younger brother to play on it. Now Loki would die – _on his Name Day_ – because of Thor.

Thoughts of mourning and ruin clouded his mind as he desperately searched for his brother, the minutes ticking by, stretching longer and longer until they were endless and Thor felt as if he'd been staring at the river for years. He could almost hear his mother's sobs when he told her what had happened that day, when he told her that it was his entire fault that her youngest son was dead. Odin would disown him, cast him out of Asgard for his wrongdoing, and he would live alone in the outer branches of Yggdrasil with no company but that of his guilty conscience. Then he would die a miserable death – a death that he deserved so much – and go to Hel where he would spend eternity alone, cold, and afraid, just as his brother had in his last moments of life.

_Here lies Loki Odinsson,_would read the engraving on the side of Loki's funeral pyre. _Beloved son, brother, and friend._

Tears burned Thor's cheeks, and thunder rumbled somewhere overhead.

_He lived a wonderful eighty-seven years of life–_

A bolt of lightning ran a jagged line through the suddenly darkened sky, followed by an ear-splitting _crack_ and the sound of a tree falling. The destruction was nearby him, just a few more meters, he suspected.

_–and died an honorable death._

Honorable because he had been trying to tell Thor to leave and Thor had been an absolute _idiot_ and questioned why they should. The price he had to pay for his ignorance was too high.

The tree that had been struck by the lightning was intersecting the river, the weight of it heavy enough to break the ice and let the water splash mercilessly up against its thick body. Thor, now incredibly gloomy and hope-ridden, pulled himself onto the fallen tree, taking careful steps to the middle of its body. He looked miserably into the roaring water.

"Loki, forgive me," he whispered to the air.

As if the Norns were forgiving him, there was a thud against the tree, and Thor fell to his knees, leaning over the edge to see what had hit it. He almost shrieked when he saw a familiar black-haired head attached to a skinny body splayed against the trunk. Thor crawled over to Loki and used all of his strength to pull his brother out of the water, his hands slipping and sliding on Loki's wet wrists. After much struggle, Thor managed to get Loki out of the water and drag him over the tree and to the muddy river bank.

"Loki, oh Loki, I found you," Thor whispered, tears falling down his face again. "Brother I'm here, I've got you." He pushed Loki's wet hair out of his face, and bit his lips when he saw the state Loki was in.

The skin of his face had turned to match the shade of the moon's, his lips colorless in the middle and a dark purple on the outside. His body was still, not even twitching or shivering like Thor was. Loki had always been frail, smaller than the other boys and skinny as a stick, always earning gentle disapproving frowns from their mother when he would not eat enough. But now there seemed to be no muscle in between his bones and skin, causing every angle on him to be all the more noticeable. If this was what a corpse looked like then Thor would not have been surprised.

Thor swallowed a sob, cupping his brother's lifeless face in his hands. "Loki, what have I done?" he breathed, puffs of air blowing from his mouth like smoke, twisting and disappearing into the air. His head hurt, hurt so _badly_ with the thoughts of having to tell his parents that Loki was _dead_. Frigga would never forgive him – she would hate him for the rest of her life because it was _his_ fault that her favorite son died. The bitterness of the thought didn't even compute with Thor anymore. It was true, simple as that. Loki was Frigga's favorite, and he'd accepted that sometime long ago.

Thor scooped Loki up in his arms, gripped his dripping trousers with one hand and his soaked tunic with the other. He began to sprint through the forest, over rocks and under tree branches, slipping on ice and jumping over protruding roots, breathing hard and refusing to stop to give himself a rest. His arms felt like they were made of wet sand – he didn't think he could continue to carry Loki and make his way through the forest at this pace for much longer.

Somewhere far away he thought he could hear a voice calling his name, somewhere just on the outside of the forest. Thor swallowed the fire burning in his throat and pushed on, taking step after heavy step until finally he stepped out of the forest and into the meadow. Sunshine beamed down in streaks across the green grass, one of them landing on a familiar figure standing a few feet away – a gift from Valhalla itself.

"Mother," he cried. "Mother, help. I can't carry him, I can't–" The grass was wet underneath him as he sunk to his knees, crying once again. Frigga, like the Valkyrie that she was meant to be, took the burden from Thor, kneeling down and laying Loki on her lap. Thor watched her expression take on extreme concentration through blurry vision. She pressed her lips together and ran her hand over Loki's face, felt for a pulse on his neck, then continued to let it travel down his damp tunic. It came to a rest over his heart, fingertips digging slightly into the dark fabric. "I'm sorry, Mother," Thor began. "I'm–"

Frigga looked at him with soft eyes, stopping the words from crossing his lips. "Shh, my son, it will be okay." Her soothing voice allowed Thor to relax a little, but he knew he would not truly feel the weight be lifted from his shoulders until Loki breathed once more.

His mother moved Loki to the ground, straightening out his spine with deft hands, enabling him to lie flat on his back. She pressed one hand over where his right lung was and placed the other over his heart. Foreign words fell from her lips, her hands glowing a warm gold as sparkling tendrils of sedir flowed from her fingers into Loki's chest. Water started to dribble out of his mouth, slowly at first and then coming out faster until he was choking and coughing and his eyes flew open. Loki gasped for air, sitting up suddenly while continuing to cough and choke on water that seeped out of the corners of his mouth like a spilt goblet.

His green eyes were clouded with confusion and fear. It hurt Thor to look at him when he saw this in his eyes. Thor touched the back of Loki's hand, still freezing from the water and shaking violently now. Loki stared at Thor for a second, mouth opening and closing without a sound.

"What . . . where am I . . . ?" Loki broke eye contact with his brother to look at Frigga. "Mother, why are you here?"

Frigga smoothed his hair down, smiling kindly at him. When she spoke Thor swore that he could hear relief in her voice. "Do you not remember, Loki?"

"I–I fell . . . into the river we were playing on. And the ice froze over before I could go back up for air, and I was pulled downstream, and I couldn't breathe, and the water was _freezing_, and I hit my head on a rock, I think, and . . ." He trails off, brushing his right forefinger over his right temple, where his skin met his hair. When he pulled his hand away, it was covered in red.

Frigga frowned and pressed her hand on his injured temple. The golden glow returned, the wound on his head healing quickly. "It will scar," said Frigga, cupping Loki's cheek in her hand. She pressed her lips to his now healed temple, smiling again when she pulled away. "Happy Name Day, Loki. Sigyn was asking where you were an hour ago. You might find her wandering around the palace."

Loki nodded absentmindedly, standing with a distant look in his eyes. "Yes, she wanted to take me out to the market today," he said, almost as if he was speaking to himself. "Because it is my . . . Name Day." A grin broke his face, very similar to the one he'd given Thor after he'd hit him in the face with a snowball.

Thor was taken by surprise when he found himself being pulled to his feet and crushed in a hug. His eyes were still wide when Loki let go of him and gave a gentler hug to Frigga. "Thank you for healing my head, Mother." With that, he ran across the meadow. He stopped at the edge of it, turned around and shouted, "Thor!"

Thor found his tongue to be heavy in his mouth and had to lick his lips before answering. "Yes, Loki?"

"Would you like to come as well?"

For as much as Thor wanted to spend more time with Loki, he had the feeling he shouldn't accompany him on any more trips that day. "No, it's Sigyn's turn to have you alone. I wouldn't want to be a third-wheel." He watched Loki nod and disappear from view.

Questions bubbled up in his throat. "Mother, what–?"

Frigga sighed and stood, placing a hand on Thor's shoulder. "Before I answer any of your questions, how about you answer one of mine?"

He swallowed hard and nodded, allowing himself to be guided back out of the meadow while he retold the disaster that occurred that morning. Every now and then Frigga would twist her fingers together or sigh, making Thor feel even guiltier than he already was. By the time he finished his narrative they were walking through her beautiful garden.

"It was all my fault he fell in and I couldn't save him. If he died, I would have been the one to blame, and then you and Father would have hated me and cast me out to be forever alone like Loki was in his last moments." Thor hated himself for crying again, for getting so worked up because Loki was _alive_, and none of that had happened.

Frigga stopped walking, stepping in front of Thor and kneeling down so she could look at him at eye-level. "Thor," she began tenderly, "it was not your fault that Loki fell in. The river that you found was one that branched off of Élivágar, the iciest river in the Nine Realms. Its waters are erratic. The temperature always drops and rises suddenly. It was _not_ your fault that he fell in."

"But I could have–"

"Hush, my son. Listen to me. If Loki had died, your father and I would not hate you. We would never hate you for anything. We love you, Thor. We will always love you. Thor–" her tone turned firm and she cupped his face in her hands, thumbs brushing away his tears "–please believe me when I say that whatever you do, no matter how cruel and terrible it is, we will always care about you. Your father and I will never let you or your brother be left alone."

Thor sniffed. "I still don't understand why Loki didn't seem to understand where he was, or why he wasn't angry with me for freezing up when he fell into the river."

"You heard him say he hit his head. I suspect it rattled his memory a bit. He might not remember that all right now."

"Will he ever?"

His mother shrugged, sliding her hands down to rest on his shoulders. "He may. It is hard to say with these things. But the important thing is that he is alive and well, and so are you. Thank you for saving him. I'm proud of you bravery, Thor."

He threw his arms around her. "I love you, Mother," he whispered into her sweet-smelling hair.

She wrapped her arms around him, squeezing tightly. "I love you, too. I will forever."

Thor would never remind her to ask him why they were out by the river in the first place, never speak of Loki's unexpectedly grim swim in the river, never mention his guilt to anybody.

Because, no matter how hard he tried to stay ignorant to the ultimate fact, he knew that it was his mistake that Loki could have died the morning of his eighty-seventh Name Day.

ii.

"How did this get in here?"

"I don't know."

"How did _my_tunic get into _your_ room?"

"I don't _know_, Loki. Pass me my chest plate."

"This is the size of the palace's main doors, it can_not_ fit you."

Thor rolled his eyes and got up from his bed, snatching his chest plate from his brother who had one perfect eyebrow raised. He fastened it, looked at himself in his mirror and straightened it. He search for his leather cuffs and found them on his bedside table which he walked to and grabbed them before he slipped them up his forearms.

"You need to lace your boots." Loki looked pointedly at Thor's feet, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall.

Thor sighed, leaning down to tie them. He straightened, gathered his thoughts, ran a hand through his just-combed hair. Today was Hunting Day, as Loki had so blandly named it – why they had let Loki name their yearly day of hunting was over Thor's head. Loki didn't even enjoy hunting, anyway. Thor was – "_Of course_," as Loki had said when he'd walked into Thor's room to see him running around the room to find his sword and tunic – late to wake up, since he'd been up all of the night before, studying for an exam that the palace scholar had threatened to give to him in two days.

As if reading his thoughts, Loki said, "I cannot believe you stayed up to study – something that I have _never_ seen you do before – on the night before Hunting Day."

Thor resisted the urge to thump him on the back of his head.

Twenty minutes later, Thor and Loki were striding down the main halls that lead to the palace doors. The older Prince sheathed his sword in the scabbard hooked around his hip. His sword was an enviable weapon, perfectly balanced and sharp enough to slice through a boulder, but he had his eye trained on another damage-bringer. Mjolnir, the hammer that sat in the vaults detached far below Asgard, never failed to make Thor's hand ache to hold it when he saw it. All of the power and beauty crafted into a weapon like _that_ – he would truly be worthy of becoming a king, then.

Loki straightened the cuffs of his tunic that stuck out under the layers of leathers and armor that adorned him. The small movement made Thor's wary eyes slide to his brother's well-covered forearm. Loki was well-known for using throwing knives and daggers in a battle, rather than a sword or axe. Some called him cowardly for using such small weapons, but he could do vicious damage with them. He was breathtakingly skilled at close-combat, using his blades and magic to wound his opponent before they could swing their sword. Magic was something he grew better at every day, his liquid grace an obvious sign of how practiced he was at using it. Again, he was called a coward as well as a cheater; on the occasion he even had been accused of being a girl, what with his gift at wielding magic, his lithe figure and his long hair.

Loki caught Thor staring at him and frowned, nodding politely to the guards who stood on either side of the palace doors as they passed through them. "Do I amuse you, brother?"

Thor blinked, shaking his head. "No."

"Then why were you staring at me?"

"'Tis nothing," Thor mumbled, walking a little faster when he felt Loki's skeptical glare burn his cheek. His brother loved to ask questions – loved to provoke people, it seemed, more often than not. Thor envied him sometimes, for his intelligence and clever tongue. Loki could conjure up a lie as easily as he could make wilted flowers bloom. Thor, on the other hand, struggled with lying, always screwing up his fibs by stuttering or changing his alibi accidentally.

Not only could Loki tell a lie well, but he could also keep his control of his emotions, often making people mistakenly think that he possessed none at all. He knew exactly when to hold his tongue and when to let it loose, crushing any arrogant lord who took one too many steps out of line. When he was angered, he became silent, waiting for the matter to blow over, and would suddenly act coldly to whomever he saw fit to for however long he wanted to. His intelligence blew anyone's out of the water due to his obsession with spending time in the palace's library.

It was as if every minute of every day was written by his hand, all events going according to plan – _his_ plan. All this strange power and he hadn't even turned two centuries of age.

Thor focused his attention back on the edge of the Bifrost where his friends were waving at him to hurry. Each of them sat on a horse with various weapons strapped to their bodies and their horses' saddles. Sif threw Thor the long reigns to his own stead, a towering animal with a rich chestnut coat.

"What took you so long?" demanded Sif as Thor mounted his horse. "We've been sitting her for ages. Heimdal said that the passage to Vanaheim was to be closed for most of the day today, so we were to get here early if we wanted to hunt."

"Hold on," Loki cut in urgently. "Don't leave – I've forgotten something. I will be right back." He took off for the palace doors.

"When did he say that?" Thor asked Sif.

"Yesterday," she replied impatiently. Her own horse whinnied and snorted, just as impatient as she was. Its coat was a glossy black, an ironic gift from Loki for her 120th Name Day that had made her scoff and punch his arm so hard it'd bruised. Although it had gotten a great deal of mockery thrown at her when she had asked the second Prince to cut it – a fact that would forever stay between them and Thor – she wore her dark hair proudly. Its change in color was never clarified to have been an accident or a mark of victory by the trickster who had bestowed it upon her, but sometimes Thor caught him staring triumphantly at Sif's dark locks, an amused look in his eyes.

"Thor! Sif!" Volstagg gestured at them to disembark. "We must be going if we want to hunt."

Fandral nodded beside him, giving them a winning smile. "Lady Sif, if you would be so polite as to stop flirting with the future King of Asgard, then we could be on our way–"

"Shut. Up." Sif glared daggers at him. "We're waiting for Loki to get something, anyway."

Fandral snickered. "Why wait for him? He'll only cheat during the hunt and use his magic."

"He's not all that muscular," Volstagg pointed out. "He's more prone to get hurt. You know how he is, Thor."

Thor swallowed, gaze wandering to Loki's white stallion that treaded nervously on the multi-colored bridge. He was thankful that Sif spoke up for him. "If you're so impatient, go then. Tell Heimdal we'll be with him shortly."

She waited for the sounds of hooves clopping to fade before nudging Thor with the tip of her boot. "They have a point," she said quietly. "He's been acting a bit . . . strange lately, too."

Before Thor could say anything else, Loki was running to them, shoving something into a pocket in his twisted leathers. He slowed down when he got to his horse, tightening its saddle before mounting it. "There. It was a petty thing for me to forget, but I have it now. We should go, or the passage might close." When neither Thor nor Sif made a move to leave, his brows knit together and he said, "Thor? Sif?"

Sif looked at Thor expectantly, although he did not meet her gaze. She muttered some useless apology, sparing Loki an almost pitying look, before turning her stead around and taking off down the Bifrost.

"What . . . ?" The look on Loki's face made a voice in Thor's head scream at him not to do what he was about to do. It was unnecessary. Cruel, even, to think about such a thing, let alone do it.

"Loki, you cannot come with us."

"I – What?"

"You cannot go hunting with us," Thor clarified softly. He met Loki's eyes and watched as realization dawned in them. It was funny how a message could be communicated between them with so very little words.

Loki was not allowed to go hunting with Thor and his friends because he was not up to their standards.

Loki's lips parted slightly in astonishment, hurt clouding his green eyes. His hands trembled a little, knuckles turning white.

Then it disappeared. All of the pain of betrayal on his features was gone, replaced by a cold mask of indifference. He bowed his head, pressed his lips together into a firm line, and was silent.

It reminded Thor of a time when they were observing their father carry out punishments to criminals and act as a judge to villagers. They were just boys learning the ways of the court. That day, a fire demon kneeled in front of the throne with shackles made of rock around his wrists and ankles, while a farmer explained that he had had all of his crops burned by the prisoner. The demon pleaded that it was an accident, that he was young and still learning how to control his abilities. Nevertheless, Odin ignored his pleas and sentenced him to death.

Loki had tugged on his father's arm then, trying to convince him to carry out a less harsh punishment. "He is still young, Father," Loki had said in his smoothest voice, letting his silvertongue do its job. "Perhaps he deserves a lesser punishment, such as a whipping or–"

"Silence," Odin'd hissed at his son, yanking his arm from Loki's grasp. He looked down at the boy with a calculated eye. "I am King of Asgard and I will do as I see fit. I have been protecting the Nine Realms for ages, and this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated."

Loki had looked the same then as he did now: head bowed, expression blank, silent as the grave.

"I–I must be going now," Thor stuttered, yanking on the reigns of his horse. He kicked its sides to lead it into a trot. When he finished counting to ten in his head, he dared to look at Loki over his shoulder, and immediately wished he hadn't.

Loki no longer looked like a boy, but instead looked like a man, all angles and shadows. Something bitter twisted his lips into a smile that sent a shiver down Thor's spine. He waved one slender hand at his brother as he jerked on the reigns of his own horse to turn it away. But for all the coldness on his face, the pain and sadness at being left behind showed in his eyes. Thor could see it all of the way from here.

"What have I done," he breathed, shaking his head as he clopped into the Observatory.

The pull of the Bifrost was a familiar feeling, along with the golden haze that overcame Thor's vision as he and his friends were transported to Asgard. He and Fandral were still laughing at some solemn thing that Hogun had attempted to say when Volstagg had accidentally dropped his kill into a river on Vanaheim. Sif rolled her eyes at them, digging her heels into her horse's sides to bring him out of his space-traveling daze. Thor nodded at the Gatekeeper with a gleeful smile, following Sif around the grand dais.

"My Prince," Heimdal said, pulling his sword out of its place in the golden pedestal. Thor looked at him over his shoulder; only half paying attention because Sif was saying something in his other ear. "The Queen has requested your presence in the Healing Rooms immediately."

This caught Thor's attention. "Why?" he asked, earning him a vexed look from Sif.

"She did not say, though she spoke with an undeniable urgency."

Thor nodded absentmindedly, turning back to Sif and letting his horse trot back over the Rainbow Bridge, managing to get all of the way to the stables before he gave Heimdal's message a second thought.

Why would Frigga want him in the Healing Rooms?

This thought perplexed him as he walked into the palace, down its long halls and finally down the stairs that led to the Healing Rooms. He spotted his mother standing in front of a room talking to Eir, the head healer. She broke off the conversation when he approached, nodding at Eir with a kind smile.

Thor bit his lip at the way she looked at him with her stormy grey eyes. "Are you cross with me?" he inquired hesitantly, looking up at her with a frown plastered on his features.

"You're old enough now, I think, to be able to answer a question like that on your own." It was a dry insult that only Frigga was capable of giving. It had a disappointed undertone to it that made Thor anxious to the cause of its use. "And," she added, "If there was anyone who might be cross with you it would most likely be the one lying in there." She indicated the room with an incline of her head.

He gave her a puzzled look, but walked into the room as she'd hinted he do so.

The sight before him made him want to turn around and run into the forest.

On the bed lay a person with their hands folded on their stomach, rising and falling as they breathed, presumably asleep. Thor would have recognized the black hair spilled across the white pillow from anywhere.

He crossed the room to the bed in three long strides, pulling up a wooden chair to sit next to his unconscious brother. Up close, Loki looked like he had gotten into a fight with a dragon. He had deep scratches on his cheeks, with two dark circles surrounding his eyes, making it look like he'd rubbed coal around them. Thor tenderly picked up his right hand and held it in his own, turning it over when he felt something lightly scratch him. Black stitches crossed Loki's palm, the skin around them colored a bright pink.

"Oh, Loki, what happened this time?" Thor murmured, stroking the back of the hand he held with his thumb.

Silence lapsed for a long time, each minute bringing a wave of guilt crashing down upon Thor at the realization that it was _his_ fault that Loki had gotten hurt. If he had only said no to his friends and let Loki come with them, then maybe he would not be hurt now. Why did it always seem to be his fault? Why was he always so _stupid_ as to let these things happen?

It took him a moment to register that Loki's body was shaking, and it took him another moment to realize that it was because he was laughing. _Laughing_. Loki pulled his hand roughly out of Thor's, covering his mouth when the laughing fit turned into a coughing fit. Thor took that opportunity to hand Loki the glass of water that sat on the bedside table, the injured brother gulping it down greedily.

Loki breathed raggedly, his icy eyes locked on his visitor. "Hullo, brother," he rasped. He made to put the glass on the table but his arm was shaking too much for him to set it down, so Thor did it for him. He yanked his arm away from Thor's touch as if it burned him. "Do not pity me."

"I would not," Thor replied, so quiet that he was almost inaudible. He tried to match Loki's gaze, but found he could not and instead looked at his hands with self-reproach. "I am sorry, Loki."

Loki barked out a laugh. "Apologizing before you know what it is you've done wrong? Hoping to be washed of your sin before it has even been acknowledged by the priest?"

Thor's eyes stuck to the blood that stained the corner of his brother's mouth. He resisted the urge to apologize again, to wrap Loki in his arms and tell him that it was all his fault he'd gotten hurt and that he was so, so _sorry_.

"After you left me," Loki began, not bothering to hide the bitterness in his voice, "I went back to the tower to study my books and practice new spells."

Thor swallowed, not really wanting to say what he did next: "That doesn't explain how you got hurt."

Loki rolled his eyes. "Just let me _finish_. I fell. Out of the tower." Just like that. Loki delivered the climax of his short story with the emotion equal to a pebble. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

After a second or two, Thor said, "Did you do it on purpose?"

"Of course I–" Loki stopped suddenly, obviously planning on snapping at something Thor hadn't said. "I . . . did." A faraway look crossed his face, only for a brief second before he repeated firmly, "I did."

Thor's jaw dropped, utterly shocked. "_Why?_"

Loki shook his head. "'_Why?_'" he mocked. "Why do you think? Maybe it was because I was bored. Maybe it was because I was trying out a spell that was supposed to give me the ability to fly. Maybe it was because I was abandoned by my brother and friends just because they thought I was too _weak_to hunt with them." His voice broke at the end of his sentence, tears welling up in his eyes. Thor had never seen him get this emotional over something in a very long time.

"Loki, if I had known–"

"Don't," he hissed. "That's what everyone says. 'If I had known, I promise I wouldn't have–' It doesn't work like that. You knew perfectly well what you were doing. You knew the consequences that would become of your decision."

"I did not know that you would _throw yourself out of a window,"_ Thor protested angrily.

Loki scoffed, "Humor me and tell me what you thought I would do, then? Sit around and wait for you to come back with a smile on my face? Did you expect to walk in here and apologize and I would fall at your feet and kiss your boots?"

"You twist my words–"

"A skill that is quite valuable," mused Loki. "But I am not using it now. No, the words I speak are your thoughts." He picked at his left palm, a nervous habit that he'd had since they were children. His tone sobered, his words no longer laced with venom. "How many times have you ignored me, Thor? How many times have you denied me to accompany you to do things when your friends were involved? Am I really that much of an embarrassment – that much of a burden – of a brother?"

"Loki." Thor cupped Loki's cheek in his hand, turning his face to look at him. "I am proud to have you as a brother."

Relief spread over Loki's face, but his lips remained pressed together in a line. He nodded – though Thor was not convinced that he had let the matter go. In fact, that lethal voice in his head warned him that Loki would never let the matter go.

He tried to ignore it.

"Sigyn found me," Loki mumbled after a few minutes.

"Oh?"

"She was taking a walk through Frigga's garden, and she found me tangled up in the rose bushes. I tried to convince her that I was too mangled for her to move by herself, but she insisted that she could move me, and by the Norns, it could have been so much worse if a healer had moved me." He smiled a smile that was almost genuine.

"Sigyn is a good friend," Thor agreed. He did not add the 'unlike my friends' part.

"For all her gentleness, though, I still broke my left ankle, dislocated my right shoulder, and split my palm open." He stretched his stitched palm for effect. "Eir had to spend a few hours re-breaking my ankle because the bones wouldn't heal the right way if she left them. The cut on my palm kept opening when she used a healing stone, so she had stitch it shut." He sighed heavily, leaning back on his pillow and closing his eyes – a silent request for Thor to leave.

Thor got up, patting Loki's hand. "I'll leave you to get your rest." He walked to the door before he gathered the courage to say, "I truly am sorry Loki that you felt the need to do this to yourself because of my ignorance towards you. I promise it will not happen again."

He saw Loki nod as he shut the door, but the uneasy feeling that his brother still bore a grudge against him stayed in his stomach for the rest of the week and well beyond that.

iii.

It was funny how different one's view of a place could change in such a short amount of time. This was the case for Thor when he returned to Asgard after his banishment. It wasn't like he'd never been away from Asgard for long periods of time. No, he had had his fair share of long journeys to Vanaheim and one particularly long expedition to Svartalfheim that took well over half a year to complete. But this time, when he took his first steps onto the Bifrost after his life-changing stay on Midgard, Asgard, wholly, seemed . . . different. The bright lights of the palace that he remembered to shine warmly now had an eerie glow about them. The village no longer seemed like a lively place, the one that used to have children dancing in its streets all night appearing to be almost like a ghost town.

Something was wrong, that was evident enough. And when Thor thinks back to that moment, when he takes the time to remember the quietness of Asgard, he thinks that maybe he could have prevented Loki from falling.

If he hadn't rushed into the palace, run up the steps and into Odin's chambers, all prepared to be the hero, maybe Loki would not have been provoked enough to attempt to destroy Jotunheim. Maybe he could have been coaxed not to do it.

They fought, of course, because all brothers fight, but their fight was unlike anyone they'd had before. This particular fight was painful and angry, the frozen air around them sharp with built-up tension that was finally being released. Thor tried to be gentle, tried to fight half-heartedly, but Loki's new brutality forced his hand to keep its strong grip on Mjolnir. He tried to reason with Loki, and when that did not work he played Loki's sick game just as cruelly.

When Loki's fingers hung barely on the edge of the Bifrost and he pleaded, "Brother, please," with tear-filled eyes, Thor saw the little, warm-hearted younger brother he had grown up with. When he knelt to drag Loki onto the bridge, only to get electrocuted by Gungnir and he weakly stared into Loki's eyes, he saw nothing but dark green irises that stormed with anger and pain and jealously of the highest accounts.

Thor made the decision then that his brother was mad, truly and wholly insane. (But he could not ignore that tugging in his mind that Loki was only like that because of him, because Thor had come back into his life.) He rested his hammer on Loki's chest, an ironic move on his part because that was exactly what he had done their whole childhood, was it not? Let his glory and popularity become a burden to Loki, never letting the younger Prince show his own talents?

Loki's mocking words hit home in Thor's heart, each of them burning themselves forever on his soul. The utter agony, the sadness, under the bitterness was so obviously _there_ that it made Thor's chest ache, as if _he_ had Mjolnir resting on it. Thor summoned his faithful hammer, brought it down upon the Bifrost, each resounding _crack_ in the multicolored bridge echoing that of his heart breaking. He would never be able to listen to Jane chatter on about astrophysics again, never share another meal of Poptarts and soda with Darcy in his lifetime.

The worst part of breaking the Bridge was not even those thoughts; it was the sound of Loki screaming behind him, shouting empty threats at him, practically begging him not to destroy the Bridge.

Thor should have stopped then and there. He should have put down his hammer and apologized for all the things he'd ever done to scorn Loki. He should have stopped.

But he didn't, and the Bifrost broke in half with an explosion to resemble that of a Supernova, and he was thrown off the Bridge. His arms flailed to grab ahold of something and he managed to catch the end of Gungnir, someone suddenly catching his ankle, jerking him to a stop. There he hung, Odin the All-Father fresh out of the Odin-Sleep clutching his ankle to keep him from going anywhere, swaying in the strong wind that blew over the waterfall under the damaged Bifrost. His grip on the golden spear was deathly, his knuckles pure white as he panted and gazed at Loki who hung from the opposite end. Desperation not to let his grip slip made Thor's breathing quicken, his eyes sliding off Loki for a second to stare into the bright void that consumed the broken Observatory far below them.

Tears – they were real this time; nobody could feign the fear in his eyes – fell from Loki's glassy eyes, which were no longer the stormy dark-green color, but were instead the light-green they'd been when he was a child. His brows drew together in some form of worry as another strong gust of wind blew them, and he finally saw; actually _saw_ all the damage he had done. Thor wanted to tell him to hold on, but could not find the voice to.

"I could have done it, Father," Loki cried, staring up at Odin with an almost pleading look in his eyes. "I could have done it!" The pain in his voice forced a sob to lodge itself in Thor's throat, dread filling him like freezing water. "For you," Loki clarified, and then added weakly, "For all of us." His voice broke, and Thor once again saw that little, dark-haired boy who was begging his father to please, _please_, end the torment that's been plaguing him for ages, _please_ be proud of him, accept him like he accepted Thor.

Thor wanted to shake Odin of his weary old thoughts, bellow at him when he said, "No, Loki," because Thor had grown up with Loki, and knew, Norns alive, he _knew_ that was not what Loki needed to hear at that moment.

The elder brother's arm shook violently as he saw the thin resolve Loki had made crumble, any emotion on his face wiped clean, his green eyes going cold and dead at Odin's words. His lips pressed together into a hard line, and Thor watched as his fingers slowly loosened their grip on Gungnir.

"Loki, no." It was Thor's turn to beg now. And then, in the blink of an eye, Loki let go entirely. "_NO!_" Thor bellowed. He felt his heart break in half, thought he could taste metal on the back of his tongue as he watched his brother fall into space, a strangely triumphant look coming over his features. Thor kicked and stretched his arm as far as it would go, as if he could somehow reach far enough to grab Loki's wrist and yank him back to safety.

But Loki was long gone, sucked into the void with the Observatory and half of the Birfrost.

Somewhere between his sobs, Thor thought he heard his father whisper, "No," but he could not tell if he was imagining it or not.

Long after the night of Loki's death, Thor stood on the edge of the Bifrost staring into the endless depths of space. He didn't know what he was looking for – Heimdal had already said that there was no sign of his brother in any of the Nine Realms. Still, he felt the need to look for Loki, as if there was a chance he'd show up if Thor searched long enough.

And still, there was that sound in the back of Thor's mind, chiding him in an achingly familiar voice that it was his fault that Loki fell – that it was _his_ego that had condemned his little brother to death.

iv.

He hadn't listened.

Why it was so surprising would remain a mystery to Thor, because when in the entirety of Loki's life had he _ever_ listened?

It angered Thor. He had _told_ Loki not to take on Kurse without his help; he had told him to wait for the right opportunity and leverage. For all of Loki's intelligence, Thor could not find a reason as to why, of all the moments Loki could have picked, he chose the most inopportune one to attack Kurse.

In a way, Thor supposed, his brother's fate had served him right. Not listening to a warning was bound to get him injured eventually. But then he realized how horrible he was being and scolded himself for ever thinking like that.

It not only mentally wounded Thor to hold his brother's dead body in his arms, but also physically hurt him. When Loki had fallen – let go of his own free will, he corrected himself – from the Bifrost, the pain was different. He had felt numbed watching his brother drop into the void, his body being lost to space forever, or so Thor'd thought. However now, the pain was scorching like the fires of Muspelheim, setting his veins aflame and melting his skin. His mind was a wreck – more importantly, _he_ was a wreck.

"Loki, Loki, Loki." Thor's endless chants of his brother's name were swept away by the severe wind that sucked his breath away. "Brother, why? Why do you never _listen_?" he demanded.

Loki's chest stayed still, the skin on his face crumbling and turning the color of the sand being whipped against Thor's cheeks. Some faraway thought reminded Thor to thank Loki if he ever saw him again in the next life for closing his eyes before he died. Thor wouldn't have had the mental stability to do it.

He wouldn't have had the acceptance of closing his brother's eyes forever.

Jane shuffled around behind Thor, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Thor," she shouted over the sound of the wind. "The storm is getting worse. We have to go."

Thor shook his head, tears choking his throat. He couldn't leave his brother alone.

"Thor," Jane repeated firmly. "I'm sorry, but we have to leave. The weather will kill you if you stay out in it." She crouched down so that she could look into his eyes. "Please."

"It's my fault," Thor said to her, loud enough so that she could hear him over the wind. "I told him not to do it. I knew he wouldn't listen."

Every time, it was his fault. _Every time._

Jane cupped Loki's ashen face in her hand. "You can't bring him," she mumbled. Thor looked at her sharply, as if to say _of course I can_. She shook her head, and said gloomily, "He's too much for you to carry. You'll fall behind and lose your way, or you'll tire yourself out too quickly and get stuck out here. I want you to stay safe, Thor. You're still here. Loki's not. And I'm sorry about that, but you have to let it go. You have to let him go, Thor."

Somehow she managed to detach Thor's death grip on Loki's body. Somehow she managed to make him stand, to let him leave the body where it was and make him walk away without looking back.

As they stumbled through the darkened, sand-filled air, she soothed him with words that were empty to him. He simply nodded and let her guide him, even though he knew that she didn't even know where she was going.

He wouldn't even have a body to put in a pyre when he got home. He couldn't even give Loki a proper funeral; honor him in the way he should have been.

All Thor knew was guilt, the very familiar, falsely friendly cold feeling that he'd only _really_ felt towards his brother three times before in his life.

"Loki," he whispered to the prayer that he sent floating up into the sky as he stood on the beach under the stars. "I'm sorry. Good-bye, brother."

v.

All that could be done was done.

Thanos was dead, killed by the Infinity Gauntlet, his own plaything of omnipotent power and destruction. His army of Chitauri was dead, massacred by the Avengers and an unfamiliar group of mostly-alien convicts who called themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy. The Chitauri's brand-new Mothership was set to have its engines overwork themselves to the point of explosion before burning up while entering Midgard's atmosphere and crashing somewhere the civilian population would not be harmed.

The Guardians had flown their excuse for a ship - "It is too a cool ship, and it's the coolest you're ever gonna see," Peter Quill had whined when Tony Stark had made a comment about it – were on Earth around the set crash site, making sure that no Midgardians were in harm's way. The Avengers had taken the last escape pod – which was more like a ship in itself - to the edge of the Earth's atmosphere to make sure that nothing happened that wasn't supposed to. But, then again, when destruction was in the cards, what more damage could occur?

Everything, it seemed, was in order.

The Mothership was empty, all except for one person.

The problem that the heroes – was that even what they were anymore? – had faced after Thanos's death was that the engines of the Mothership had to be blown up manually and there was no guarantee that they would get out of range before it exploded. Therefore someone had to stay to manually type in the code. There had been an argument of course – lots of shouting and throwing things, statements of rightful duty and wishes to be remembered in glory. When all of the tragic monologues became too much for Loki, he'd stepped in, said he would do it.

That didn't blow over well.

Protests were flung at him like daggers, everyone having a reason not to let him stay. A few of them insisted he was still untrustworthy. Some said he had helped them enough already and didn't need to feel like it was his job to do it. And one person in particular said that he'd already seen his brother die twice and didn't want to see him do it again.

Somehow – Loki's head hurt too much to remember exactly how – he'd convinced them to let him be the one to stay behind. (He thanked the Norns for his silvertongue.) However, he knew, even when he was dead, that he would never forget the look on Thor's face when the decision was made – the look of pure pain and anguish plastered plainly across his golden features. It'd hurt Loki to keep eye contact with him when he told them to leave for the hundredth time. The Captain and Man of Iron had to take hold of each of Thor's muscular arms and practically drag him onto the escape pod.

Thor had continued to protest even when he was taken to the pod, shouting curses and pleas at Loki because it was his job to protect his little brother, and he could not just let him die _again_. There _had_ to be a different way to solve this. There _had_ to be a way for Loki to not die. There _had_ to, there _had_ to – get _off_ of me, I have to save Loki, he cannot die again, Mother would not want it. Please, Loki, _please_, listen, why do you never _listen_?

Now Loki stood over the main control panel, tapping away at the screen that would finalize his death, not really paying much attention to what he was doing. What did it matter, anyway? More than one of these buttons was bound to send the engines into overdrive, so why did it matter which one he pressed?

He scrubbed a hand over his face, ran it through his long hair. This was not the death he'd imagined he would experience, though he _had_experienced his fair share of ways to die before. But this was fine, he supposed. He was alone, in a relatively quiet place, with nothing but the humming of the slowly over-working engines and the view of Midgard before him to accompany him.

Well, _almost_ alone.

There was a sudden crackling sound, like the static on one of the little black boxes that he'd seen the Archer carry around with him occasionally. A walkie-talkie, Agent Barton had told him once. A voice filtered in from all around the command room. Loki did not bother to think how that was possible.

"Loki? Come in, Loki."

"Agent Romanoff."

"Can you hear me?"

"Yes. It's a little unclear, though."

"That's how it's gonna have to be. This ship's technology is way past Earth's and all these screens are screwing me up."

Loki chuckled. "One of the most skilled assassins on Midgard who is thrown by simple alien technology?"

"Damn. Even when you're gonna die; you're a bit of an ass."

Loki decided to say nothing. He walked over to the steps that led down to a little expanse before the wall-sized window in the front of the command room. The view from here was truly fantastical. He could see every detail of Earth, ever storm that swirled over the green land and every star that surrounded the planet. It was beautiful.

"Loki? You still there?"

Her voice startled Loki a little. "Where else would I be?" he asked warily.

After another few moments of silence, Natasha said, "I'm sorry, Loki."

Loki scoffed, "Liar." He could tell that she was going to protest, so he added, "Don't feel the need to support yourself. All of you hate me, and I agree with you. I am a monster. I deserve death. Do not feel the need to give me pity."

Natasha sighed. "I'm not lying. I'm serious. I really am sorry. I'm sorry that your childhood was a lie, I'm sorry that you had to die twice, only to die again, and I'm sorry that you're alone. I'm sorry that your friend died, and I'm sorry you had a hellish life."

Her words hung in the air, made it thick with truth, leaving a bittersweet taste on Loki's tongue. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, resting his elbows on his knees, and saw Sif's lifeless body lying in a pool of blood behind his eyelids. He exhaled and opened his eyes, blinked to expel the images from his mind.

"Natasha Romanoff," Loki said with a smile, "the only person I'd ever met to actually be able to surprise me."

"Telling the truth feels good," Natasha said simply. "You should try it."

Loki gazed out at Midgard, the hum of the engines speeding up at a considerable rate turning into a low roar.

"With the course you're on now, the Mothership should crash right around the coast of California. You'll pass our ship, but no damage will occur." There was a loud noise over the intercom then, like someone was banging on a door. "Shit," Natasha muttered. Loki heard her say something to the person next to her – Barton, most likely; he always seemed to be around her – then heard footsteps and a static-filled conversation.

"Agent Romanoff?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

Loki linked his fingers together as he gathered his thoughts. "You told me once that love was for children." He paused to give her a chance to agree, but she didn't, so he continued. "Do you still believe that?"

The silence that overcame the command room was eerie, as if he was shouting into a thick fog to see if he was alone. He could imagine the assassin biting the inside of her cheek, something he'd seem her do many times before when she thought long and hard about something. Finally her voice filtered through the intercom, bitter and slightly sad:

"I do. When you live a life where everyone around you dies, you can't afford to love anyone or have them love you back. It's like you're trying to walk on the edge of a coin. If you allow people to love you, then you look like a hero even though they die. If you don't allow people to love you, you look like the villain, and they live.

Loki, I know what you're thinking. You've fallen on both sides of that coin. When I first met you, you were on the villains' side, and I think because I've seen you fall onto the heroes' side I understand why now. I mean, obviously I don't _truly_understand why, but I don't think anybody in this lifetime will be able to unless they're you because you're _Loki_.

"So what I'm really getting at is that it's up to you what you think about love because I think there's that fine edge of the coin that splits the heroes and villains sides, but I just don't think I've been able to walk across it yet."

Her words took a weight from Loki's shoulders, made his vision clearer than it had been before. It surprised him how deep the supposedly notorious, cold-hearted really Black Widow was. He wondered why he had never bothered to talk to her, about anything really, before.

Another question caught his tongue. "Do you know what it's like to have someone love you, Agent Romanoff?"

"No."

Loki let out a bitter, breathy laugh. "So sure of that answer. No hesitation at all."

He imagined her shrugging. "I honestly don't. In the Red Room, I loved a friend dearly." An intense second passed. "She died. All I've ever known how to do is kill and harm, so I don't know what it's like to love someone."

"I beg to differ."

"Do you?"

"The Black Widow–"

She interrupted, almost angrily, "Don't call me that. Not now."

"Natasha Romanoff," Loki corrected himself politely, deciding it was best not to ask why he had to do so, "Nobody, even the people with the best poker faces like you, has the incapability _to_ love, or has committed enough crime not to _be_ loved."

Natasha scoffed. "You took the words from my mouth," she said with heavy sarcasm. "A perfect statement, coming from the lips of a hypocrite." Loki frowned, and his silence made her laugh. "You know it's true, that's why you're quiet."

The banging in the background on her side got louder, this time accompanied by a shout of some sort. Loki tried to ignore the images of his brother, screaming and looking absolutely broken, invading his mind.

"When Thor breaks down the door," he began idly, standing up to approach the gigantic window, "tell him that I am sorry."

"Look who's saying sorry now," commented Natasha.

Loki continued as if she hadn't spoken: "Tell him I'm sorry three times - once for our mother, once for Odin, and once for him. Tell him that it's better this way, and it always has been. Make sure that he knows that there was nothing he could have done to stop this from happening. It has been my wish to die for some time now." He felt a lump form in his throat as the true weight of his words dropped in his mind. "You tell him, Natasha Romanoff, that he should mourn for me and be done with the whole ordeal – should forget about me in due time."

"I . . . will," was all she said.

An alarm went off behind Loki: the engines were officially going into overdrive and, with the heat of entering the Earth's atmosphere, the ship was set to explode in exactly three minutes. Funny how even a race of aliens had something so petty as an alarm for the engines.

Loki pressed his fingertips of both his hands against the cool glass, watching as the green of Midgard slowly grew in front of him. "For someone who was bred to kill and maim," said Loki softly to the air, "you really are a comfort."

"Go take care of him. Make sure he doesn't come in before the ship goes down," he heard Natasha say to Barton. Then, directed to him, "Well in all the situations I've been in, you've had to assume that I've dealt with my fair share of innocent deaths before."

Loki's breath fogged the thick glass in front of him. "How many deaths?" he asked, closing his eyes.

She replied immediately, "Four-hundred-twenty-nine."

His breath caught in his throat. He'd seen an infinite amount more innocent people die than that, but the number was still a large one for a Midgardian. "I'm sorry," he whispered, not even sure she could hear him.

"There was this one time I had to talk to a whole orphanage in Saint Petersburg while the building they were trapped in burned down."

Children. Loki had killed so many innocent children . . .

"It's funny," she chuckled darkly," it was almost the exact scenario as this. You know what I did?"

"What?" Loki breathed, just loud enough for her to hear.

"I sang to them – it was an old lullaby my friend in the Red Room used to sing to me. I escorted all those kids to the doors of Death."

Lights started to flash in the command room for a few moments before they all went out suddenly, leaving only the dim lights on Earth to illuminate the room. There were the sounds of explosions from far below.

"Sing for me, Natasha," Loki said, his voice shaking just as badly as his body was. "Dance me to the doors of Death. Please," he added in a choked sob, sinking to his knees in front of the glass.

He heard her inhale before her voice slowly started to find its rhythm in a song that was unfamiliar to him. Loki recognized the language, and the way the complicated words fell from her lips and fit with the tune made more tears flood his eyes. Her voice hit the lower notes with just the right amount of roughness to make the lullaby sound just like that – a lullaby meant to be sung to tired children.

Loki closed his eyes, imagining that he was laying in his over-sized bed in the palace on Asgard, snuggled under the soft furs, just a boy once more being sung to sleep. "Thank you, Natasha," he said, genuinely smiling for the first time in what felt like forever. "Thank you."

He did not see the escape pod pass him, did not see Thor finally get into the command room of it, did not see the look of utter brokenness on his face, nor the fire (finally that damned fire after all these years) of guilt that burned constantly in his blue eyes be stamped out – a true sign that he accepted that there was nothing he could have done to save Loki from this death.

A true sign that he thought Loki's death was honorable.

A true sign that Loki's battle was over, and paradise awaited him somewhere.


End file.
